Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
e
ects of income inequality were inconsistent, and the authors suggest that either rights
and literacy capture more important aspects of power disparities or the quality of
the income distribution data is poor (or both).
25
They obtain weaker results for the high-
income countries, suggesting that rights and literacy are most important when average
incomes are low.
Other cross-country studies have also suggested that political rights can be an impor-
tant determinant of environmental outcomes. Scruggs (1998) found greater rights to have
a statistically signi
ff
fi
cant favorable e
ff
ect on sulfur dioxide concentrations, favorable but
weaker e
ect on dis-
solved oxygen. Barrett and Graddy (2000) found air pollution by sulfur dioxide, smoke
and particulates to be 'monotonically decreasing in the extent of democratic freedoms';
for water pollutants, they found statistically signi
ff
ects on particulates and fecal coliform pollution, and an adverse e
ff
ects in the cases of
fecal coliform, arsenic and lead. Harbaugh et al. (2000) also found a strong statistical
relationship between an index representing democratic participation in government and
atmospheric concentrations of sulfur dioxide, smoke and particulates.
Further empirical support for the hypothesis that power disparities have an adverse
impact on environmental quality comes from a cross-sectional study of the 50 US states
by Boyce et al. (1999). The authors derived a power-distribution index from state-level
data on voter participation, tax fairness, access to health care and educational attainment.
In a recursive econometric model, they found that states with more equitable distributions
of power had stronger environmental policies, and that these in turn were associated with
better environmental quality.
fi
cant favorable e
ff
Globalization and environmental cost shifting
As globalization extends the arena for environmental cost shifting, the profound inequal-
ities in the worldwide distribution of power and wealth become more relevant to the polit-
ical economy of
e (2003) observes, income
inequality at the global level exceeds that at the national level even in the most unequal of
countries, such as Brazil and South Africa (with the possible exception of Namibia). This
is hardly surprising, since a global measure of inequality puts the richest strata of the pop-
ulation in the global North in the same universe as the poorest strata of the global South.
The 'power equivalents' of this income distribution - a phrase coined by Kuznets (1963,
p. 49) - may likewise be more unequal globally than at the national level. If so, the fore-
going analysis suggests that globalization may lead both to environmental polarization
between North and South and to an increase in the total magnitude of environmental
degradation worldwide.
Having widened environmentally relevant disparities by putting the global rich and the
global poor into the same basket, globalization eventually may reduce these disparities by
promoting faster growth in the incomes of the poor than of the rich. But the evidence for
such a trend is mixed at best.
26
More promising, perhaps, is the possibility of social develop-
ments - the other side of
environmental degradation. As Sutcli
ff
Polanyi's 'double movement' - that increase the political
e
ectiveness of demand for environmental protection in low-income countries. Here too,
however, the record to date is not terribly encouraging. While Weidner and Jänicke (2002,
p. 440)
ff
nd some evidence of a global convergence between North and South in environ-
mental policies, at the same time they conclude that capacities for policy implementation have
become more unequal, resulting in 'convergence of policies but divergence of outcomes'.
fi
